


Sand

by EllieMurasaki



Series: Asagao Ni [4]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Bechdel Test Pass, Community: 100_women, Episode: s01e04 The Warriors of Kyoshi, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-08
Updated: 2012-05-08
Packaged: 2017-11-05 01:09:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/400251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieMurasaki/pseuds/EllieMurasaki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Katara talks to a Kyoshi Warrior.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sand

Katara goes down to the beach, past children digging in the sand, and takes off her shoes, the better to feel the wet sand under her feet. If they _must_ waste time, there's a whole ocean out there longing to be waterbended.

"You're Katara, right?" someone asks. Katara turns to look. It's one of the Kyoshi Warriors, hair too long to be the leader, but the face paint they all wear and her short acquaintance with the Warriors makes it impossible to tell one from another beyond that. "I'm Kasumi. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"The pleasure's mine," Katara says automatically.

"If it's not rude of me to ask, you don't seem happy," Kasumi says.

"If it's not rude of me to say so," Katara answers, "the sooner I get off this rock, the happier I'll be." Kasumi doesn't say anything, so Katara explains, "The Fire Nation's after us, and...we can't learn waterbending here."

_I can't learn waterbending here._

"Ah," Kasumi says.

A long silence. Katara looks at the water, takes a stance, and _pulls_.

The wave and the tide are both going out. Nothing much happens.

"How much waterbending do you know?" Kasumi asks.

"More than you," Katara snaps. Kyoshi Island is Earth Kingdom; Kasumi is an earthbender, if she's a bender at all.

"My sister is a fisher," Kasumi says, "and she knows the water. Water goes where rocks are not." She waves at the children, now digging a channel from their hole to the sea. "Or where the sand is not. Perhaps you should try being the rock, or the sand."

It can't hurt to try. _Water goes where the sand is not. Be the sand._ And the imagined sand is everywhere but where Katara wants the water—

She and Kasumi both end up drenched. "Oops," Katara says.


End file.
